Gracepoint Berkeley Worship Blog

Worship Team Facts: In-Ear Monitors

Ever wonder why the Gracepoint Fellowship Church praise band sometimes looks like secret service agents with those headphones sticking out of one ear? If you’ve never seen them then you haven’t been looking closely and that’s good because you should be focusing on praising God anyways! 🙂 Anyhow, the in ear monitors are basically as is described. Instead of the typical monitors, speakers that sit in front of the stage, we use wireless packs which our headphones plug into. The music is now plugged directly into our ears and this allows the singers and instrumentalists to hear ourselves while on stage. The coolest part about it is that we can choose to turn up or down whatever instrument or other singers in the band. It’s like creating my own personal mix on Sundays!

Man, I have to say that once you go to in-ear monitors, it’s kind of hard to go back! Seriously though, they are really nice – with regular monitors, it is really hard sometimes to pick out my particular part since I’m hearing the electric, bass, acoustic, and all of the singers as well. But with the in-ears, I can pump myself and the acoustic and the other keyboard up and it’s a lot easier to get my part down. I guess one downside is we don’t get to hear the mix that the whole congregation is hearing – but I think we can trust the sound guys to make sure it sounds great!

in-ears are great but only when you need them. it’s absolutely necessary at Willard or Koffman but other smaller venues are fine without it. I always just plug it one ear because I like to hear the “real” sound..what everyone else hears.

Well, we are from the in-ear days with home worship service! Unplugged acoustic is all we need!